He survived, but with extensive brain damage. His hands shook with palsy and one foot dragged, paving of his memory gone to potholes. He'd been in an assisted-living home ever since. But old cohorts showed up regularly to visit, bringing with them all the latest courthouse gossip.
"Early September is what they're saying. I'll keep you posted."
"Thanks, Herb. You doing okay?"
"Never better. Occupational therapist here would adopt me if she could. Who'd ever have suspected I had artistic talent? My lanyards and decoupage are the best. Others look upon them and weep."
"Anything you need?"
"I'm good, T. You get up this way, just come see me, that's all."
"I'll do that."
Lou Winter had killed four children, all males aged ten to thirteen. Unlike other juvenile predators, he never molested them or was in any way improper. He met them mostly at malls, befriended them, took them out for elaborate meals and often a movie, then killed them and buried them in his backyard. Each grave had a small garden plot above it: tomatoes above one, zucchini above another, Anaheim peppers above a third. From the ground of the most recent, only a short stem with two tiny leaves protruded.
It was my fourth, maybe fifth catch as detective, just a missing-persons case at the time. I'd been kicked upstairs arbitrarily and had little idea what I was doing or how to go about it. Everyone in the house knew that-watch commanders, other detectives, technicians in forensics, patrol, probably the cleaning lady. I was a week into the case with no land in sight when I knocked off around six one night and went out to find a note tucked under my windshield wiper. I never did find out who put it there. It had the name of the missing child on it, the one I was looking for, followed by the number four. It also had another name, and the address of a pet shop at Westwood Mall.
A buzzer sounded faintly as I walked in. Lou Winter came out of the back of the store and stood watching me, knowing even then, I think, who I was. When I told him, he just nodded, eyes still on mine. Something strange about those eyes, I thought even then.
"I have a mother cat giving birth back there," he said. "Can you give me a few minutes?"
I went with him and stood alongside as, cooing and petting, tugging gently with a finger to urge the first kitten out, the first of five, he helped ease her birth. No, not five: six. For, long after the others had dropped into our world, another head began showing.
The last kitten had only one front leg, something wrong with its skull as well. Holding it tenderly, Lou Winter said, "She'll reject it, but we have to try, don't we?" as he pushed the others aside and placed the new one closest to her.
"I'll get my things." A gray windbreaker. A gym bag containing, I would learn later, toothbrush and toothpaste, a Red Chief notebook and a box of Number 2 pencils, several washcloths, six pair of white socks still in paper bands, a pocket-size paperback Bible. "I'll just lock up." Taking a cardboard sign off a hook alongside, "Back in a Jiff," he hung it on the door. "Marcie comes in after gym practice. Be here any minute now."
He never asked how I found him, never showed any surprise.
Once we'd left the store, I noticed, he began to seem awkward or uncertain, staying close to me, face bunched in concentration. Macular degeneration, I'd learn later. Like many whose faculties decay slowly, he had compensated, memorizing his surroundings, working out ways to function. But Lou Winter was more than half blind.
Outside the station house, a man in an expensive suit and shoes that cost about the same as the suit stepped up and introduced himself as Mr. Winter's lawyer. He and Winter regarded one another a moment, then Winter nodded.
And that was Herb Danziger.
Inside, waving aside Danziger's caution and counsel, Lou Winter told us everything. The four children, what they'd eaten together, movies they'd seen, the gravesites. Dr. Vandiver, a psychiatrist who did consulting work for the department, came over from Baptist there towards the end. "What do you think, Doctor?" Captain Adams asked. Vandiver went on staring out the window. "I've been trying to put it into words," he said after a moment. "The word I keep coming up with is sadness" It took the jury less than thirty minutes to come back with a verdict and the judge all of two to sentence Lou Winter to death. Herb Danziger carried on appeal after appeal in Winter's name, right up to the day of his assault. He'd even tried to represent him once afterwards. But when his time came, Herb sat there watching the blades on the ceiling fan go round and round, intrigued by the shadows they made. The judge put off proceedings till the following week and appointed a new attorney.
I hung up the phone after talking to Herb. Clouds moved along the sky as though, having misspoken, they were in a hurry to get offstage. Across the street Terry Billings's legs stuck out from beneath his pickup as he worked on his transmission for the third time this month, trying to wring out yet another few hundred miles.
I was thinking about Herb, about Lou Winter, and remembering what Dr. Vandiver had so untypically said.
Sadness.
Not for himself, but for the others, the children. Or for all of us. In some strange manner, Lou Winter was connected to humanity as few of us are, but the connection had gone bad. Small wires were broken, sparks dribbled out at joins.
Once I had wanted nothing more than to see Lou Winter convicted, then executed. I understood why Herb held on: in a world all too rapidly emptying itself of Herb's presence, Lou was one of the few tangible links to his past, to what his life had stood for, what he had made of it.
Was it really any different for me?
Lou Winter had been a part of my life and world for as long. It was altogether possible that in losing him I would be losing some unexplored subcontinent of my self.
That same day, I remember, I stopped Gladys Tate for driving drunk. She was in husband Ed's '57 Chevy and almost fell twice getting out. She'd already run into something and smashed the headlight and half the grille. When I mentioned that Ed was going to be damned mad, she grinned with one side of her face, winked with the other, and said, "Ed won't care. He's got a new toy." His new toy was a woman he met at the bowling alley up by Poplar Grove, the one he'd left town with. Gladys looked off at the old church, now mostly jagged, gaping boards and yellowed white paint, though a skeletal steeple still stood. Then her eyes swam back to mine. "My clothes are in the dryer," she said, "can I go home soon?"
CHAPTER FIVE
The business card was for a financial consultant in offices just off Monroe in Memphis. That consultant thing had always eluded me, I could never understand it. As society progresses, we move further and further away from those who actually do the work. Consulting, I figured, was about as far as one could get before launching oneself into the void.
I came here with clear purpose. I'd be on my own, no attachments, no responsibility. Now I look around and find myself at the center of this community, so much so that freeing myself for a few days in Memphis took some doing.
First call was to Lonnie. Sure, he'd fill in, no problem. Be good to be back in harness, long as he knew it was short-term.
"I'll try to keep it down to a minimum," I said.
"You're going after them, aren't you?"
"You wouldn't?"
"They hurt my daughter, Turner. For no good reason save she was there."
"Figure they can do whatever they want out here on the edge, I'm thinking."
"That's what they're thinking too. Just don't forget to give the local force a courtesy call."
"I'm not sure MPD wants to hear from me."
"Call them anyway. You still have any contacts there?"
"Tell the truth, I don't know."
"Find out. And if you do, cash them in for whatever they're worth. Nickel, dime-whatever."